Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood #2)

“Within the brotherhood, Rhage is the vampire with the strongest appetites. He’s the best fighter, the quickest to act on his impulses, and the most voracious lover—for inside him burns a ferocious curse cast by the Scribe Virgin. Possessed by this dark side, Rhage fears the times when his inner dragon is unleashed, making him a danger to everyone around him.

Mary Luce, a survivor of many hardships, is unwittingly thrown into the vampire world and reliant on Rhage’s protection. With a life-threatening curse of her own, Mary is not looking for love. Her faith in miracles was lost years ago. But when Rhage’s intense animal attraction turns into something more emotional, he knows that he must make Mary his alone. And while their enemies close in, Mary fights desperately to gain life eternal with the one she loves…”

So this is the second book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series and it is about one of Wrath’s men, Rhage. Rhage has been cursed by the vampire version of god, the Scribe Virgin. The Scribe Virgin has the same role in the vampires’ lives as the old Greek gods did. She actually appears to mess stuff up or fix it as she sees fit. She has a weird quirk though, you may not ask her any questions at all or she gets SUPER mad. That has yet to be explained.

There is also a large amount of homophobic language for no reason. I think the author sees no other way to assert a male dominance without being homophobic, transphobic, and sexist which is appalling.

So Rhage curse is he turns into a giant dragon beast when he gets upset. This is great in battle as he is able to eat all the lessers (the enemies of the vampire world), but not so great because the beast doesn’t stop until everything around it is dead. The funny thing is, the author tried to romanticize the beast by having Mary be the only one that could calm it. Mary is able to get the beast to leave and let Rhage come back and she is able to calm him down before the beast happens. There is even a scene where Rhage freaks out because the beast wants to have sex with Mary and he has to keep trying to push the beast away.

This is the book where the majority of the battle between of the Lessening Society is revealed and everything starts to amp up. It starts to appear that this series isn’t solely going to be about romance. It is also interesting because it is mostly told from the male perspective of the fighters so you get a front row seat in all the battles.

Rhage was a much easier guy to like than Wrath, but the whole point is that all the males are hardened warriors that need to be tamed and helped by their females. Is this the only use females have in this series? For the most part it is, but much later there is a female that has a role that isn’t savior.

3 out of 5 stars. I am on the fence on this book series, I want to be able to recommend it, but it is starting to get ridiculous.